


Watchfires

by seitsensarvi



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Universe, Developing Relationship, Disturbing Themes, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-09-19 07:31:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9426131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seitsensarvi/pseuds/seitsensarvi
Summary: Maybe it would prickle on Erwin's skin. Maybe it would draw blood. The more he'd lick and the more he'd cut and he would feast like he always longed to feast. He'd remove layer upon layer and hold the man's fears in his open palms, stripped bare.





	1. Reach to me and lead me astray

One step. Two steps. Four. A sixth. Then, a pause. Three seconds before it starts again.

Erwin is pacing. The captain can hear him, his ear to the door but he would hear him from across the hall, from the other side of the building. The commander has been restless. When he is not walking around in his office, he walks around in his head. It sounds just as loud.

Soldiers aren't unaware of the direness of the days, feeling it dawn to dusk, but they at least do as they are told and abstain from causing more trouble; it isn't as if they never had to share, be it rations or clothes. Sometimes, but some warmth; often, tears. New recruits aren't told when the leather they're given was salvaged from a miraculously recovered body not a week prior.

Levi waits. There's dirt from other muddy boots, on the floor under his own, dry. Rain hasn't stopped in days. He could barge into the room the next second, offer company or a distraction or an attentive ear and pretend he doesn't see the strain on Erwin's brow, the tiredness under his eyes.

He hasn't got the heart to lie. 

It wouldn't do to add a layer of broken glass to the man's injuries, it's what Levi's tongue feels like in his mouth, sharp, cutting when he speaks no matter how hard he tries not to and he doesn't want to hurt, certainly not now. 

Maybe it would prickle on Erwin's skin, distract him enough to think of a solution to shortages and the burn of too many men to feed because the harvest has been a disaster but the last expedition wasn't and they brought back near the number of souls they left with for once and for once there's nothing to rejoice about.

Maybe it would draw blood. The more he'd lick and the more it'd cut and he would feast like he always longed to feast. He'd remove layer upon layer and hold the man's fears in his open palms, stripped bare.

The stables need a check, the training grounds overflow. Supplies suffer delays. It's far from the first time but the men's mood is as low as the food stocks and despair is creeping day by day into every strong muscle forced to a rest, covering them with stillness like the mud is covering floorboards, inch after inch, relentless. 

He would tend to the wounds, afterwards. Every single one of them.

The captain is certainly more useful elsewhere.

Sandpaper lips shut close, forced close if they can't polish, can't smooth around rough edges, can't do anything but bruise. Useless. Levi walks back down the dim hallway, his own steps heavy like defeat.

 

 

It's tedious, supervising training when recruits are told to reduce their use of gas down to the bare minimum. It's useless. Levi abandons after a day, makes them spar instead. He fights with them and if it sparks a fire, it doesn't stoke it for long. Mike isn't around to provide a challenge. 

It's been months since Erwin had the time to train with them.

It has the advantage of busying their hands at least. Dirt takes all the more time to remove from creases and under fingernails and through them the days pass, eventually. Equipment needs care. Bodies, some days more than they give, but he won't dwell on the fact. It holds. They all hold, somehow.

The captain brings not a word in the commander's office when he goes there next. Concedes. Checks. Worries, perhaps. He doesn't trust himself to ask after what matters and he doesn't feel like speaking about what doesn't. He brings silence and two cups of tea and his legs spread in the chair facing the desk, unapologetic in taking up that space and the man's time. Hoping he is convincing enough. Erwin can order him out if he doesn't want to see him, even just ask. 

He doesn't.

The strain in his shoulders even relaxes, the slightest amount. It's a surprise. Almost as if the commander hadn't thought Levi would wait so long, hadn't thought he could slip out of sight for days but he can and he did and he will, again.

It's almost, he suppresses the thought, almost as if he'd been missed.

Levi can speak other languages than scars. Sometimes he forgets, and sometimes nothing else comes out, no matter that he tries. Erwin would understand, if he would tell him. The man speaks many words, witful and perfectly arranged, but still silence best. 

There's papers scattered down to the floor. A map is drawn out and Erwin looks at it as if it would reveal hidden treasures but it just lays there, lifeless, and the furrow of the man's brow tell Levi there's no answer to the lack of fundings here, either. Still, Erwin looks at it like it holds what he seeks. Like the answers are right before his eyes and he doesn't see them because he isn't trying hard enough.

Levi can't remember a single time Erwin didn't try hard enough.

“It's eating you up.”

“Then we should rejoice. Something is eating here, at least.”

“Think we could feed your body to the soldiers when you die from exhaustion? That's the big idea?” The captain doesn't wait for a reply. “Like what, today, tomorrow? How many d'you think it'd satisfy?”

Erwin's eyes don't leave the map.

“At least a dozen, I think. If they are mindful enough not to waste, maybe even more.”

It infuriates Levi further.

“No, that won't do.”

“Why so,” Ewin states, doesn't even question, “one man for a dozen sounds like a fair deal to me.” 

Humorless.

“It won't do because”, Levi starts, “It's plain wrong. It'd feed just one.”

There is no reply, but he's feeling generous, so he offers an explanation.

“Only me. I'd eat all of it.”

The commander lifts his eyes at that, and it's a victory.

“All of it ?” He searches Levi's face now. A triumph.

“All of it.” 

Their gazes hold for too long but they're used to the game. They haven't played in a while. They've rarely gone this far, and that makes Levi want to push further.

“I'll be proper, don't worry. A fork and a knife and not a stain. You know me.”

“Wouldn't that make you one of the beasts? Eating me?”

“Far from it.” He stares, sees only blue. “They never appreciate their meals.”

The captain tears his eyes away then, turns to rise. He makes for the door without looking back.

“I look forward to dinner, commander. Any hour now.”

Erwin watches the door slam, tingles in his arms. The teacup poured for him has gone cold, still full.


	2. Receiver

Hooves dig deep into the wet dirt, wet grass. The horses are slower than usual, exhausted sooner. The men, also. There is a repeating pattern outside the walls, eerie quietness for hours, riding to the only sound of their nerves, radiant. Then numbing noise, for what feels like years. Three soldiers are mowed off their mounts in a fury; a fraction of a second too late is still too late. When no other choice is left, swift wires lash across the giants' backs. Soldiers look no bigger than insects, crawling at monster's feet, attempting a flight. 

If they were a thousand. If they were a million.

They change courses and ride west, putting distance between themselves and the sound of a voice that roars then gurgles into silence. Before long, it becomes harder to tell the dying man from the thundering beast. 

They only mean to explore, this once. They never secured a base outside even though they tried. The riches, Erwin had said simply, the riches out there would feed and nurture every single soul inside the walls, and their children and their children's children next, for hundreds of years. The vastness of it, the abundance. If they could expand a little, just a little, if they could use it in some way, sow hope and life and wait a season to be given back.

The world is immense and they're hardly more than grains of sand and the wind is howling. 

Sound judgement allows to accept that inexperienced soldiers are always reaped first. It's difficult to tell the new recruits apart from the others, afterwards; those of them who make it back once don't quite look their age ever again. It will be easier this time. 

Levi cuts through more monstrous limbs than he can count. It's all reflex, trigger and reaction, immediate, no thinking because there isn't any space for it and it leaves the body broken but the mind more so. No second-guessing. That part comes after.

They leave their brothers' and sisters' bodies to waste away with titan bones.

When they come back and the captain finds sleep he kills still, dreams of mountains moving, forming enormous caverns for mouths first, then gigantic arms, then legs, growing out of earth, made of clay and water and man's hand, and he is alone and he kills them all. This time, the beasts have Erwin's eyes. He awakes drenched in sweat and he's fought, he's yelled and he's ran for his life a second time over. The beasts had Erwin's eyes.

Levi hasn't gone to him after the mission. He wants to see him now. He can't see him ever again. He's afraid he'll sleepwalk and see those eyes on monsters instead of the man's face once more and hurt or harm and then, too late. 

It's the middle of the night but it's the night after an expedition so Levi isn't surprised to see others awake, chasing sleep, avoiding it. This one is curled around a young man just outside one of the barrack rooms and she whispers reassurance and promises of nightmares going away but her knuckles are white, because in the end there is nothing else to do but hold and be held and not let go.

Levi walks faster. 

 

 

There isn't a way he knows to say “I killed monsters and they were you”, so instead the captain walks over to a chair, sits sideways to avoid looking at a questioning face and he tells the commander, “I've murdered people”, out of the blue.

Erwin doesn't seem taken aback. He takes his time, savors the confession just like every part Levi discloses, no matter the way. It has many subtle tastes.

“I never knew.” 

“Never wondered about it?” The captain crosses his legs.

“Of course it crossed my mind. But I didn't want to ask. It was yours to tell.”

“Yeah well, I'm not above it. You're not above a lot of things, underground.” 

He smirks, dry.

“I suppose so.”

Erwin knows too well the lengths to which one has to go, in particular occasions. 

“Are you disgusted?”, Levi asks after a while, offhanded.

“Disgusted? No. I'm only sorry it couldn't be helped.”

“Guess you know the feeling.”

“Yes and no.” There are a lot of things that can't be helped in their lives. There are others that can. “In my case, I didn't have to.”

“D'you kill too? Who was it, one of those wall fucke-”

“My father, first.”

“That's not the same.”

“You're right, it's not the same. I didn't have to.”

Levi wonders if guilt can gnaw at bones, a dent here and a hole there, piece after piece, until they crumble. Would the commander collapse, when the foundations erode, would he lose his balance slowly or fall over all at once? He can't quite imagine a man his size, falling. A man his importance. It would shake the earth.

Erwin rarely shares so much. Levi rarely knock on people's doors in the middle of the night, takling about taking lives. 

“You didn't want to. I didn't want to. Sounds to me like we're doing an awful number of things we don't want to, nothing more to it.”

“What do you want then, Levi?”

Erwin makes it sound like it's conversation. The captain averts his eyes and considers his own hands, lethal hands only as strong as this man's will. Strongest.

“Too many things." Right now, he wouldn't think to lie. "I want you to rest at least once in this entire month, for a start.”

“Don't you want anything for yourself?” He sounds amused.

“Can't plan anything if you're too busy digging your own grave, now, can I.”

Stay human. A plea. He doesn't have the strength to say, lean on me, let me lean on you. He thinks back to the bodies in the hall, merged in comfort, pressed close in hurt. The words in his mouth sounding so similar.

“Don't know if you've heard but dead men can't think up strategies.”

It's safer to put the others first, he thinks, to invoke the entire humanity, and to hide behind.

“I think I've encountered the notion, on occasion.”

“Clearly.”

Levi crosses his arms now, too. Erwin smiles at that, and it almost, almost reaches his eyes. It's also a little sad. Levi commits the sight to memory, stores it away. Never like the beasts', his are much too deep, his are far too bright. And Levi would do more if he dared, take more and give more in turn but a captain doesn't ask his commander to watch over his sleep, not even only for a while.

He would overstep. 

He's comfortable in the chair now. There's a warmth to simply being with another that he shouldn't allow himself to crave. That he hadn't known he missed. He watches Erwin fumble around the office but it doesn't look like he's searching for anything, almost like he's putting his files away. Levi relaxes some more. Still human.

He opens his eyes a few hours later, unaware he had closed them at all, to the last of a candle burning before him and a jacket that isn't his own draped over his arms.


	3. Adrift

“Seen the budget expenses this month ?”

“Looking bad?”

“Looking worse.”

“We could always rob someone rich.”

“No, Levi.”

“I've done it plenty. If you're worried abou-”

“That's not the point”, Erwin cuts in, “We're not stealing from nobles to pay for expeditions.”

“Not for fundings, for food. Fuckers got far too much of it.”

“What if someone finds out?” Hange looks too interested for their own good. “You sure you could do it without anybody finding out?”

“Hange. We're not stealing, and we're not killing either, before anyone suggests.”

Levi lifts just a brow.

“Then what, exactly, are we doing?” Mike asks, low.

“I exhausted every connection. There's no merchant in the capital willing to help us now, they're struggling just the same — no, I know Hange, not exactly the same. But to them, it feels no different, and it means they will not help.”

“Shit, I'd like to see them fight for their lives out there for even a second.”

“The point is,” Erwin continues, “We might have to resort to some more unconventional practises.”

“Fail to see how that's different from stealing.”

Erwin explains in great detail how taking on an assignment on the king's account is, in fact, different from stealing.

If Levi had wondered why it took so long to come with the plan, he soon realizes how setting a precedent ensures that they get asked again. Even be blackmailed into it, if they're unlucky. Less expeditions a year if they fail to play along, less fundings if results don't satisfy. But desperate times call for desperate measures and they can only grit their teeth through it, hoping that it pays off. Hange reasons that Erwin knows what he does to bring it up at all. Has other points of pressure, leverage here for a favor there, all a matter of balance.

As long as they don't get caught, or exposed, or die. Erwin knows to make sacrifices.

They set out the next day, the commander and Mike and three soldiers of Mike's and the captain doesn't get to learn more because he isn't part of the assigned team.

“Thought it was a good job for you, but he must have his reasons for leaving you out”, Hange says unprompted.

“Never questioned that. I'm more than fine with staying here.”

Levi isn't. He knows he could have helped, but it isn't his concern how Erwin chooses his team.

It's the third night after Erwin left. They're drinking in the lab, the part of it that actually has a clear table and some chairs and slightly less suspicious containers on the floor. It's never Levi's first choice for a night off but the messy room has a warmth resembling that of a tavern when a few lights are out and the alcohol is plenty, and it doesn't have the inconvenience of other people with them. It also costs much less. Levi lets his elbows rest on the table. They meet a moist surface. He curses. 

“Ever thought of blowing that whole place up to clean up a bit?”

“If I hear an explosion in here I'll just assume Moblit touched something he shouldn't have. Not that he ever does. Now, now. Since when are you so considerate?”

He takes a sip.

Hange smiles. Levi drinks more.

 

 

He knows they're back when he sees Mike and Mike looked tired and a little off but he was in one piece and he didn't say anything about Erwin being severely injured, so Levi breathes easier, a bit. It's long past curfew. He has no reason to check on him. The commander can take care of himself.

He enters Erwin's office without knocking. 

The room is dark but the man is here, though not in his usual place behind the desk. Levi agrees it's too late into the night for post-mission paperwork, but then he sees him, lying sprawled over the couch at its right, instead. An arm over his head and a boot distorting the cushion, leg bent at the knee.

“Levi.”

He lets out the name in a breath, like a question or a wish.

“You're drunk.”

Erwin turns his head as if to look at him, eyes still shut.

“And you're not. Wasn't it a day off?”

He sounds slurred. Slowly opens his eyes.

“I had a few drinks. You, however,” Levi walks over to the couch, “had far too many.”

“Maybe.”

“Could have told me the mission was getting shitfaced. Would've lent a hand.”

“It wasn't. And you wouldn't have come either way.”

“Figured. Everything went fine here by the way, in case you wondered.”

“I see. Sorry, I might be a bit slow. Yes, the mission went well.”

It's unlike Erwin to let his guard down this much. He probably held it together until the moment he passed the door. Until the very second he fell. Levi doesn't know how to feel, stuck somewhere between relief that he is there and concern that he hasn't truly come back.

“We compromised the man, as told. We received the better part of the pay. As told. And,” he inhlaes slowly, “we will probably never see the rest of it.”

Concern it is, then.

“So you went for a few drinks.” He takes two more steps.

“Ah, no. That was part of getting on with the right people. Build confidence.”

“Did it work?”

“No.”

Levi's legs almost brush the couch.

“Our target... Was someone from the underground. He did his lot of wrongs, of course.”

“There's all kinds of rats in there.” Erwin could have told him he was going back. He would have been torn. Erwin did well not to tell him. “Might not sound like it just now but you could have helped a bunch of people in the long run.”

He wants to touch the golden hair, card his fingers through the light strands, make sure that Erwin is here, see how much of him is there. The commander looks so close in the dark, just within reach. He's painted in blues. He's less real. More real. He's both.

“It's possible. Or we might have done a lot worse. There's no telling for now”, a breath again, deep, “But somehow, the entire time we were down there, it reminded me... It felt like...”

Erwin slowly lifts a hand. Levi chances a guess.

“Like hurting me.”

The hand curls around Levi's leg, at the back of his knee. It's not unexpected. It feels safer than it should.

“Yes.”

“You did what you had to do.” Erwin doesn't look convinced, so he speaks of what they never bring up. “Back then.”

“Are you sure of it?”

Levi wants this hand to grip him tighter. For fingers to brand him, for nails to dig and raise blood and stay there, firm. For Erwin to curl under his skin.

Instead the fingers leave, and it's suddenly cold, so much colder, so Levi falls as well, kneels just where is he and holds onto the couch because he has to hold onto something. He looks straight into the commander's eyes and he's close, too close. He revels in the feeling.

“I gave my word. I pledged. Whatever you call it. You didn't take any of it. I gave it. You get that, right?”

“I do, Levi. I do.” The same hand passes over a tired face. “Sometimes I ask myself if I'm not letting you give too much. If I'm not accepting too much.”

It doesn't make sense. Levi thought Erwin knew, all that he's given him. How he's handed him his existence back.

“Erwin. One day, I'll give my life.”

It's only because he has it for himself that he can offer it, at all.

“I know.”

“Good.”

The captain watches the heavy eyes before him, closely. He repeats, “Good”. He doesn't think when he takes Erwin's hand in his own, when he bends to kiss the palm. When he waits, his breath held between the man's fingers, safe. Erwin doesn't move. Levi's lips don't leave. It draws out, soft, slow. “Good.” It's the hand he left a scar on. He feels the raised skin there. It tastes like a promise, and he is starved.

He remembers he left a scar on the side of a neck, too. 

He makes them both sit up when he thinks he might really indulge and sink his teeth, though he doesn't quite know how he manages. It feels distant then, as if the closeness they had just now curled over the couch stayed there and they moved away. 

Levi waits, watches, resists bringing his two hands up to a side, an arm, only to feel, only to catch and hold the man and hold himself, at the same time. Keeps them to himself instead, wills them to stay, nervous and hot over his thighs. Erwin nods. Reality must be coming back. 

He nods again, then turns to leave. He takes his hand to the captain's shoulder on his way out, squeezes, a single second, if even that. 

Levi feels the man shake, tells himself it's the wine.


	4. Echoes

Months pass by, cold and slightly less dire. The reward earned them overpriced food and one last expedition the same winter. The news is met with a shudder here, there wide eyes, yet fists thump on chests with the same force as usual. 

They will not ride far. The days are shorter, light barely reaches them at all. It makes everything slower, but the beasts most of all. 

Hange suggested a capture. The nets are immense, they could cage the sky.

Levi watches the commander direct every soldier's limb to the only sound of his voice. If the man could, he would raise the dead.

Some days on the field, when exhaustion sets in and pain becomes the only name they know, they come to wonder if it's their own bodies moving, or if might not be the ghost of every fallen man and woman before them, lifting them up, high atop hundreds of invisible backs. Making them fly.

If they could, the dead would rise.

The first net breaks. They try again, twice. They fail, twice. The titan tears through mesh and flesh alike.

The dead do not rise, lifeless forms on the ground staying still as stone and there aren't enough living hands to catch bits and pieces when they fall off giant mouths, already full. They retreat watching monsters hoard corpses inside themselves, then there's nothing but lumps of flesh and spit, blood and smoke.

Hunger carves holes into empty stomachs. No one ever dines on expedition nights.

This once, the commander-in-chief might rejoice at the brevity of their reports, never one to push to bring beasts inside the walls. No matter how often they've tried to convince, louder each time. Hange had explained relentlessly, voice clear and hard, that knowing the enemy was their one most essential task. Under his breath, Levi had suggested they keep a few to display during budget negociations. Later, Erwin had whispered the monsters already were inside the walls.

They caged no titan. No sky. Hange tries not to blame themself. It doesn't quite diffuse the bitterness of failure, collective or theirs, so they set their exhausted eyes and seem to get back to work the instant HQ is in sight. Berner is on their heels. Levi sees the door close in his face.

Mourning is the river's tide, rising; reaching all yet not in the same place, not at the same time. Mourning erodes them all, like the river's tide.

There is unease creeping behind. The captain is lacking something. He could not say what. Perhaps it's the day, two of his men, trained by him, each their unique skills, each his pride. Perhaps it's the night. Rituals are the most important thing to those who come back, the only thread to cling to, to hold them upright. It's carved deep into the mind. They wash blood off their hands and scrub at leather and tear at skin to hold onto something and it's calming the one, two, three first times. Only later, a year or five, cleaning and scrubbing and digging finger paths into their own tender flesh has become an extension of the fight.

It doesn't offer any comfort anymore after a while. It doesn't comfort Levi now. He is used to the sight of limbless bodies but his own bones don't sit right.

The dark door has become familiar, in some ways more so than his own. Levi doesn't knock. He leans his back on it when it closes. The commander seems to sense the change, leaves his paper on the side. He doesn't engage, content to simply watch. He waits. He welcomes.

“It's missing,” comes the first breath, dry.

“I know.”

“Replace it.”

“I can't.”

“With something else.” Levi doesn't ask, he demands. “Anything. I don't care.”

He's learnt so well to silence the pain it's become too quiet so he thinks, make me. Make me feel again, make me shiver, make me hurt. Ask for my life, for only mine. He does not say the words.

Understanding dawns on Erwin's face, until he closes his eyes. The commander looks very old in this instant, bearing the years he lived, and added to them the years each fallen soldiers didn't. It feels like thousands. Levi would ask where the man hurts in turn, if he thought he'd reply.

His mind is set to other sights. On occasion, Levi thinks, a whole other war. But he has felt the same, has lived the same. Showed it differently. Hasn't showed it at all. 

“I'm sorry, Levi. Once, I was convinced I would always know what to do, but...” 

Erwin's voice is soft when he gestures for Levi to approach. When he's given permission, he takes Levi's arm. Guides the smaller hand on his chest, to his own heart and he echoes.

“It's missing.”

The captain wants to turn and leave. It's not missing. It beats just under his palm. He sees it every day, hears it in every silence. How it fights. How it howls. How it screams. He knows just how deep every loss runs and how heavily every step back weighs on the man. It's showing in the lines on his brow, in the shadows under his eyes. It's odd he can't tell for all the weight Levi knows he feels, inside, but Erwin's grip on him is iron and his gaze so clear Levi realizes he means what he says, believes every word. Tells it in Levi's exact terms so that he knows in which ways they hurt the same. The captain doesn't leave. 

He burns at the admission, at the sudden frailty. This once he doesn't have the excuse of tasteless humor, Erwin the one of wine. It feels bare but perhaps he was waiting to be made so. Perhaps he doesn't mind.

Erwin will not take what he needs to take. Erwin will not ask what he needs to ask. The same as before, the same as it always was. Levi has to give himself, willing, has to give it all. He feels the blood pulsing in his throat, heart beating high — there again, at last.

He curls his fingers where they rest, too hard. It scrapes fabric, it bruises skin. It will leave a mark.

“Take mine.”


	5. Rise fierce winds

He never asked if there ever was another man or woman standing where he stands now. If his place at the commander's right, always the right, will remain vacant when he dies. He never wondered, never found the occasion. 

Never took the time.

He uses long minutes to wonder when they will break instead. How they will fall. He has come to wonder how Erwin could break every day, so he watches closely to be able to tell. The strength of the man is like nothing he's ever seen, inside; surely all the tension must be felt on the bones, in the heart. An imbalance here but a twist there so that he still stands tall.

Outside the walls. Inside the walls. In himself. Everywhere, he is waging war.

It's a battle still when they draft propositions for the coming year, then, if not these exact ones, their alternatives. Erwin has dozens of routes mapped out in his mind and, Levi notices in the past couple of days, dozens of black spots on his sleeves.

The captain asks him if he knows just how long scrubbing ink off white shirts takes. The commander admits he doesn't, but chances it's harder to wash bloodstains still. The captain concedes.

He's had occasion enough to notice the technique, variety the essence of the craft. They ask for the moon at times. They ask for just enough and even this is still a fight. This once they don't get the moon, or even a half, but the tension has eased faintly where it had settled between Erwin's shoulders and for now it will have to be enough.

Thery're greeted by rows of figures in robes when they exit the building, praying to the walls. The sight leaves a bitter taste on Levi's tongue. They'll pray to stay caged whenever soldiers go to die. The church reaches so high the captain can't tell how they are not crushed by the empty space, but he thinks they must fill it with voices and it is not empty at all. 

It's an oddity to him. Men like them don't pray.

Nothing is holy in defaced forms, once human-shaped, torn and crushed and bruised until there's no telling this one from the other and maybe it was the man who shared your bunk or the woman who saved you the expedition before.

Nothing is holy in the blood of another dripping down survivors' unsteady hands, washed away as soon as it can be because it burns, then missed and mourned as it was all that was left of a squadmate, of a friend.

Nothing has ever been sacred in their lives.

On several accounts, Levi doesn't like their regular outings to the capital. They're regarded in many different ways by civilians and churchmen alike. At times, some hold respect in their eyes, or it might as well be fear that makes them step back just so when uniform-clad soldiers pass them by. He never asked how long death's smell clings to their skin after they return, how long before they stop looking like harm.

An older man comes forth asking after sons and daughters unburied, lost beyond the walls. Erwin takes the time. Takes the grief and holds it until he would sink underneath the weight. Lets the stranger call him names while he takes it all. It's painful to watch. Levi watches. He's ready to take the pain away, the man, away, if he must. Erwin raises a hand. Erwin never breaks in broad daylight.

He shows not the hint of a crack in the carriage that takes them away. The afternoon light filters through the dirty glass. It refuses to give any warmth.

“All things considered, it went quite well.”

Levi might play the part since he's invited, except he has no such casual line. He has anger with him and the stretched hours of the long way back.

“Perfectly. Even let that one shit on you the way you like.” The words rip his throat.

Erwin would even attempt a smile. 

“Someone has to,” he says. It makes perfect sense in the man's mind.

“When we return. In the capital. Shit, Erwin, maybe you'd even let your own soldiers say that crap — thanks Maria they don't, I'd kick ou-”

“They have to blame someone. I'm in command here, Levi, so it happens to be me. I've made peace with the fact.”

“Have you? Wait, yeah, 'course you have.”

His head is turned to the window. He doesn't look outside, or anywhere. He doesn't look at Erwin most of all. 

“Levi.”

He doesn't want to.

“Levi, look at me.”

It could be an order. It sounds like a request. Levi would have obeyed both. He wonders if the commander knows. 

He glances to the side.

“It makes it easier if it's me.” Erwin's eyes do not leave him, as if to keep him there. They're but a few feet apart. “I don't have to win their favors. I don't lose precious time fighting their opinion. It isn't what you, and I, and every other soldier make sacrifices for.”

They fight for the ungrateful too. Levi wants to tell him it's half a lie. 

“But you still agree,” he says instead.

“I give the orders. I can't disagree.”

“Fucking hell.”

Erwin lets out a laugh, low.

“I'm sorry for making this difficult, it wasn't my intention.”

“'Course it wasn't. It never is. Now shut up and let me enjoy the ride back.”

“You hate the ride back.”

He knows Erwin sees the shadow of his mouth curving though it's not quite a smile. He supposes the man is be aware that when he bites he only means to say, there is nothing to forgive. You're forgiven. You're forgiven. I forgive you.

He realizes then. It happened over time, one month after the last. It happened in a blink. In the eye of the storm, raging everywhere but where he stood he could not have seen, but now that he's taken but one single step back it hits him, all at once. Erwin shows it to his eyes only. The bow of his back after the day's passed. The tiredness casting shadows under his eyes. Only with him does he cease to be commander to become man.

Others can't see the man. It's easier for him if others never see the man.

Later, when the sun has come down and he brings his fingers too close to Erwin's, on purpose or not he hasn't yet decided, Levi sees it again, softness for him alone. The commander must not be aware of how used he has become to foregoing the mask. He allows it to show more often in the dark. Levi wonders if he knows, silently burns the memory into his mind.

Erwin watches his hands, stares at the curve of his knuckes, follows the scars. If Levi moves slower than usual, it's only by accident. He watches back trying to name the unknown he sees in his eyes.

He would call it relief. He would call it gratefulness. 

If he was able to conjure the thought, he would call it prayer.


	6. I am praying for the raging flood. I am waiting for you to come.

The commander has come to know exactly what his captain hides and how he hides it; behind half-glances and sharp words and aborted touches, near successess. It had been a practise of weeks turned months turned years. He had relied on instincts at first, before he'd learnt to read every twitch of the leg, every inflexion of the voice. He doesn't know when the sight of him has become the air in his lungs as Levi comes and goes and comes back again lest Erwin forgets to eat, rest, breathe. There are millions of ways he knows to say he cares. Erwin only wonders how he's still able to, why he still can.

Levi looks at him with a palette of intents. Erwin favors them all. 

He enjoys the sarcasm, brows drawn together tightly, retorts bitten back. It has come to feel familiar like home. Sometimes it makes him laugh. Levi makes him laugh a lot.

He has a taste for anger. Never for too long, for it's a gift best savored in a single shot. The fire in his gaze when one of the beasts charges, when a remark is headed his, Erwin's way; lively enough to make him feel alive.

If he could allow the honesty, he would not deny he adores the longing he sees there sometimes, still not quite knowing what to do with it, finding it fascinating all the same. It's a different kind of fire. It burns slowly enough to get used to the pain. In a moment of weakness, to ask for more.

More often than he cares to admit, Erwin wishes it meant the captain would get on with the sentence he's promised. Not necessarily now, not when there is so much to take care of, supplies orders reports formations, not with the expeditions and the coup and the beasts and the world. But one day, perhaps. When he's fought enough and he's tried enough and he's learnt what he needed to learn to finally silence the murderer child turned murderer man, inside.

He can't picture himself, afterwards. There isn't a version of himself that exists after the truth is known. The instant he obtains what he seeks, he ceases to be commander, soldier, man. 

He leads his men into battle holding onto the thought.

In the way children know when they are indulging too much despite warnings, Erwin tries not to invoke the images. He makes efforts to chase them away. He fails often. When he lies awake and his mind roams wilder territories, for a time unleashed, he can't help but wonder. What would Levi consume first? He would hope he reclaims the heart. He imagines the last of his pulse passing into the captain's veins. How would he taste in the man's mouth? Wouldn't Levi choke on the pain in his flesh, the guilt? That, alone, makes him hesitate. 

He thinks about it now, Levi not five feet away, so entirely inappropriate it brings a faint heat of shame to his face and a thrill to his spine. Candlelight dances on his lips. Erwin wills himself not to cast a glance to their shadows. The man stands so close they must have merged.

He keeps his eyes on thin, rough fingers instead. He watches broken skin over bruised knuckles. He wishes Levi knew that when he sees his hands, Erwin prays. He's seen them hurt, and soothe, and kill, and care for. He's seen what they can do to others, barely allows himself the thought of what they could do to him if he only asked. 

He wishes the captain could read his mind.

Erwin has never voiced how much he longed, has never faced the carefully concealed, cold truth so straight on as to speak it aloud. Through removed conversation and stained words, a hundred times told, he expects Levi has picked up on the clues, pieced them together. He expects Levi to be able to bear the ugliness, him alone.

He wishes the captain would read his mind.

More and more, Erwin's breath catches when the grey eyes light up like the ones of a wild wolf, waiting to devour. Yet at the last possible moment, when he thinks Levi might really be going for the throat, he takes a step back. Erwin can feel it, thick and raw, can sense the longing subside but it always comes back, a day or a week later, so he keeps his hopes up. He is a patient man.

“I remember first time I saw you fly.”

He watches surprise play on Levi's face, in shadows. He favors that expression, too, enjoys the success when he can bring his words to flush the back of a neck, to make his blood rise.

“The first time I saw you slay.”

He speaks playful words to Levi, allows the one indulgence and he's rewarded with his salvation so close, fingertips on him so light.

He waits, expectant, observes each second replace the last but harm never comes and Levi's mouth is too sweet on him to ever inflict pain. He wouldn't expect death to be soft, knows devouring involves sharp claws and pointed teeth and in this instant there is nothing but warmth. It's unexpected. He was certain he'd seen hunger in those eyes.

Levi's lips are on Erwin's ear, all too soon. “Not yet,” he says. It's not even a whisper.

Erwin wonders. Perhaps the captain does read his mind. 

He nods, throat tight. He accepts. He will wait, ever the patient man. Tomorrow, they'll rise again. Tomorrow they'll open their eyes, again, and pretend not to remember in the same breath they vow to never forget. 

Erwin keeps his eyes closed to chase away the shame of being known so deeply, of being seen so true. Levi keeps his touch on him, his hold on him like an anchor as if Erwin will remain so long as he doesn't let go. 

The weight of Levi's hands has always been the only real thing in this world.

The commander allows them to stay for now, gentle on his nape.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Death is a such long-winded, recurring theme between them.  
> The watch fires of course symbolize watching over, watching out for; the burn, also.
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
